Digital trail project leads path to learning about Hawaiʻi's queer history

Two filmmakers have created the Lei Pua ʻAla Queer Histories Trail project, aimed at documenting and memorializing gender and sexual diversity across Hawaiʻi's multicultural landscape.

The premise of the project is to uplift queer stories in the community through historical markers, according to the Lei Pua' Ala Queer Histories of Hawaiʻi co-founders Dean Hamar and Joe Wilson. By following the digital map in the Bloomberg Connects app, users will learn about eight key sites in Hawaiʻi's queer history.

The Glade Show Club in Honolulu's Chinatown is the first stop on the trail. Gender-fluid drag artists performed there throughout the 1960s when the state passed a law criminalizing cross-dressing. Many performers were māhū, people of dual male and female spirit.

"The Glade is one of the wonderful places that is being memorialized," Hamar said. "It will just be the first of many, we hope, across Oʻahu and across all of the neighboring islands as well."

Hamar said efforts began a year ago to get a plaque at The Glade Show — around the same time the project started.

When Hamar and Wilson were researching the Stones of Kapaemahu, which were brought by Tahitian healers who came to Hawaiʻi to treat diseases, they found that the stones were uncovered in 1963 — the same time The Glade Show started.

"That historical coincidence made us interested in that site," Hamar said. "We began to research what had gone on at The Glade and how it affected what was going on with the stones because the attitudes about queer people, the LGBTQ and māhū are all interrelated."

Other sites on the trail include the Pae Kiʻi Māhū o Wailua, Ke Ahuolono, Kūhiō District, Hilton Hawaiian Village, Blaisdell Hotel and Honolulu Fort.

To learn more about the app, click here.

This interview aired on July 9, 2024. It was produced by Cassie Ordonio, the culture and arts reporter for Hawaiʻi Public Radio.

Listen to the interview here.